Geeky Memories

I just saw a picture of a kid with an Atari computer, and it made me think of my first computer, a Commodore 128. At ten, I talked my dad into taking me to a meeting of the Greater Oklahoma Commodore Club. He later told me that he thought it strange that all of the other members were his age, and he was just dropping off his kid.

Anyway, I thought the older guys were the coolest, then I met the ultimate group of gurus: The SysOps. I bought a 300 baud modem and began logging on to every BBS in town, until I could take it no more. I knew I had reached the bigtime when I finally, at 11, talked my parents into a 1200 baud modem and a phone line. I got my hero George, from George's Den BBS, to help me set up my software, and I became the SysOp of Comm-Term BBS, Oklahoma City. This was in 1986. My BBS had nothing on it except links to other BBS's, and a SysOp who laid awake at night waiting for the beeeeeeeep, and hoping the user would pick the "chat with sysop" command.